There is a certain vibe when you walk into Trader Joe's -- employees wearing aloha shirts signal that. But it's also about the quirky names that many of the chain's products have, like Everything but the Bagel seasoning, Teeny Tiny Avocados or This Pumpkin Walks Into a Bar cereal bar. Thanks to a recent podcast episode, we now know why and how the cult-favorite grocery store names these items.
"I guess, essentially, we believe that grocery shopping can be fun, that it does not have to be a chore," said "Inside Trader Joe's" podcast co-host Matt Sloan. "And when you bring the things that you buy from your Trader Joe's home, we'd love to extend that experience to your cupboard, to your freezer."
On the latest "Inside Trader Joe's" podcast, which is the official podcast of the company, hosts Tara Miller and Matt Sloan shared how the brand gets these ideas. The gist is that coming up with whimsical names is part of the identity of Trader Joe's -- it's part of what separates it from other grocery stores. Sometimes the names are literal; sometimes they are born from a joke. Other times, a product developer will have a "crystal clear" name in mind and then will deliver on that, Sloan said. The brand wants the experience of shopping at Trader Joe's to be more fun than it would be at a competing store.
The Everything but the Bagel seasoning is one of Trader Joe's most popular items. Miller said it was created about 10 years ago and is now ubiquitous in the zeitgeist of grocery store products.
"And that's a twist on a classic, not-Trader Joe's-invented idea of the everything bagel. It's just all the seasoning bits except for the bagel," Sloan said.
Miller added, "But we took that idea and we kept going with it, so over time, we've had the Everything but the Elote Seasoning, which is kind of like all the flavors that are on a classic elote or esquites corn. And in the fall season, we have Everything but the Leftovers Seasoning, which is like a riff on Thanksgiving dinner in a jar. It's fantastic."
Then there's Trader Joe's guacamole, which has a reference to the Italian scientist Amedeo Avogadro.
"You're walking down an aisle, and you, you're in front of a refrigerated case, and you see a package of something called Avocado's Number Guacamole. Like, what the heck is that about?" Miller said. "And then you read the package, and you realize that we named it that because it has so many avocados in every product, and Avogadro's number is this ginormous never-ending number."
The play-on-words schtick was also used for the Pound Plus chocolate bar.
Sloan explained, "And sometimes the plays on words, well, they're just getting at the reason for being. Take a long-standing type of chocolate bar, Pound Plus. Trader Joe's Pound Plus Bars have been around for decades. Why are they called Pound Plus? Well, they're from Europe and the measurement system is metric, and it's a standard, not normal retail size, chocolate bar. It's 500 grams, but 500 grams in the standard American way of measuring comes out to 17.6 ounces, so it's a little more than a pound. You get a pound plus 1.6 ounces of chocolate."
All in all, they indicated, the team at Trader Joe's is thinking about the shoppers.
"It's really just us coming up with ideas to make something noticeable, and hopefully to pique someone's curiosity, to get them to try something and to have a bit of fun themselves," Sloan said.